The Tyrant's Daughter (4 page)

She returns empty-handed. “I can’t find the magazine I was thinking of. But you’ll have better luck searching online anyway. While you’re doing that, I can pull a few books. Do you have a user account?”

I shake my head, scared this will mean that I can’t use the computers.

“No problem. I can help you get started.” She directs me
over to an empty terminal and guides me through the account setup. If she recognizes the similarity between our research subject and my own name as I enter it she does not say so, and I appreciate her discretion.

When she leaves, my fingers stiffen over the keyboard.
Are you sure you want to do this?
I ask myself.
Are you sure you want to know?
I’m not sure of anything, really. But I do know that certain words have been planted in my head, and they are sprouting like unwelcome weeds:

Dictator
. This one compliments of Emmy.

King
. A tale told by my mother.

Massacre
. An accusation in a newspaper.

Assassination
. A sentence carried out by my uncle.

This library—this cluttered room filled with so much information—is the only place where I can sift through the words. I hope that I can disprove them, replace them.
Let them be lies
, I plead silently.

I will my fingers to type.

It’s too late to meet Emmy at Starbucks; I’m certain she’s long gone. I’ve been here for hours, held hostage by the pages and pages before me on the endless, unrelenting internet. The librarian, trying to be helpful, also brought me a heavy stack of books detailing my family’s history. More information than I ever wanted. More information than I want.

It’s too much.

In article after article, my father’s name lives on in terrible configurations with terrible events. “Repressive regime,” that damning alliteration, chases him throughout the newspapers like a dog nipping at his heels. Protests alternate with massacres; peace talks end with violent deaths. My country makes shameful lists: Worst countries for women. Worst countries for human rights. Worst countries for press freedom. It’s never at the top, but it’s often close—it’s the runner-up in a devil’s beauty pageant.

And over and over again, Emmy’s word appears.
Dictator
. A title passed down from my grandfather, a man who died before I was born and whose name is similarly tarnished in the pile of books left by the librarian. I stopped reading at my great-grandfather’s mention—the pattern was clear by then.

Ours is a cursed dynasty.

The library is closing, and I’ve learned more than I bargained for. There’s nothing to do but go home.

I walk fast, pumping my arms, as if motion could shake the barbed words out of my brain. I’ve followed this route enough times now to finally know my way, but it’s getting dark outside and the changing light makes everything look foreign once again. I spot the familiar chicken-by-the-bucket restaurant, and even that looks ominous now—the long line of cars queued up for the drive-through reminding me of a funeral procession. It’s not Colonel Sanders’s fault. My library reading has left me with death on the brain.

I’m startled when I walk into our apartment—I almost back out, half convinced I’ve walked into the wrong unit.

We have company.

The three of us have been alone in our suburban exile for more than a month, so I am momentarily speechless. My mother is not.

“Laila, darling, close the door. Look who’s here!” Her voice is brighter and more animated than it has been for weeks. She sounds like her old self.

The man sitting on the couch is vaguely familiar, but I can’t remember his name. I should say hello, but I’m fixated
on the cup of tea in his hand. I’m certain that I used the last tea bag the day before, so does this mean Mother finally went shopping?

“Laila,” she prompts again, sounding impatient.

I nod in greeting.

“Hello, Laila.” The man nods back. “I came to check on all of you, to see how you’re settling in. I brought a little housewarming present.”

A basket sits on the table, bright green cellophane pulled away to reveal fruit and small tins and boxes of food and candy.
That’s where the tea came from
, I realize grimly, disappointed that Mother hadn’t managed to get it on her own.

I remember the man now. He looks different sitting calmly in our tiny living room, wearing a suit and tie. The last time I saw him was rushed and frantic, and he’d been wearing dirt-stained cargo pants and a holstered gun. “Hurry up! Hurry up!” he’d been yelling at Mother as she tried to pack more and more suitcases. “There’s no time for any of that!” His American accent was jarring to me then—an exotic sound in our part of the world, its presence in our home underscoring just how wrong things had gone. He’d driven with us to the airport, looking over his shoulder again and again as he shooed us onto the waiting jet. I hadn’t thought of him since. He’s a part of a day that is better left unremembered.

Now he looks bland and harmless. Which probably means that he isn’t.

An awkward silence settles around us, and the man takes the hint. “I’d better get going,” he says, standing up and handing his empty teacup to my mother.

The way she takes the cup in both hands, gracious and smiling as if it were a gift, instantly makes me suspicious. I wonder what I’ve missed.

“Give it some thought,” the man says to my mother. “I’ll check back with you later this week.”

She
mm-hmms
noncommittally and walks him to the door. She has always been skilled at not giving answers.

“Where’s Bastien?” I ask as soon as she shuts the door.

“I told him to wait in his room while the grown-ups talked.” She plucks an orange out of the gift basket and begins to peel it. “Would you like some?” She holds a section of the orange out to me as she calls my brother. “Bastien, my sweet prince, you can come out now!”

It’s enough to set me off. “Why do you do that? Why do you insist on calling him that?” I’m suddenly angry with her. Furious, even. I’m hungry, I’m tired, and my head is full of so many questions I don’t even know where to begin. I miss my home, my bedroom, my tutor, my things. I miss my father. I miss my life. And now she’s the only one left, the only one standing in front of me, so she gets the blame by default. “It’s a lie. You know that, don’t you? He’s no prince. And Father was no king. Can’t we stop pretending?” I’m yelling louder than I mean to, and angry tears start to burn at my eyes.

She stares at me for a moment, her eyes narrowed. “You don’t know what you’re talking about, Laila. Just take some fruit.”

I bat the orange away. “I
do
know what I’m talking about. Do
you
?” I stop talking as I see Bastien standing in the doorway of our room. He tilts his head at me but says nothing. I
don’t know how much he’s heard. He doesn’t look upset, but then again, he rarely does.

“Can I have some now?” he asks, gesturing toward the basket.

“Of course, darling.” Mother shoots a sharp glance in my direction that tells me our conversation is over.

At least we agree on that much.

It’s much easier to give someone the silent treatment when you live in a palace—high ceilings and chandeliers have a way of absorbing silences that our little apartment here cannot.

Mother and I stumble over one another in our awkward, wordless state for two days before she gives in. She’d been nervous, jumpy, ever since my blowup, picking at her cuticles and drinking too much coffee while staring off into space. Part of me is proud that I can affect her so much. I could have held out longer.

“Laila, sit.” She pats the space on the couch next to her after Bastien goes to bed. “Let’s talk.”

I sit, but I still don’t speak. I want to see where she starts. She’ll have a strategy, of course. She always does.

“Laila, there’s something that I’ve never told you. Something about when you were just born.”

I’m surprised by her beginning. I don’t recognize this strategy.

“Did you know that you were born two months premature?”

I didn’t. I shake my head.

She looks at my feet as she speaks, avoiding my eyes. “There were … complications. Our hospitals are awful now, and they were even worse back then. But your father thought it would look bad if I flew to London to have a baby, the way your aunts did. The way I did when Bastien was born. Your father thought I should stay at home to make a statement: if the health-care system was good enough for the birth of
his
daughter, then it should be good enough for everyone else.”

I fidget, anxious for her to get to the point. I don’t want a lecture on health-care policy.

She ignores my impatient sigh. She’s determined to tell her story
her
way. “When you came so early, you were tiny. You were so fragile, and so sickly the doctors in that wretched excuse for a hospital didn’t think you would even survive. Your father and I were both devastated, but it was worse for him. He blamed himself for putting politics before your health. So he came to the hospital every single day and sat with you. He would just stare at you, stare at all the monitors and tubes keeping you alive, for hours at a time.”

She looks me in the eyes only briefly before lowering her gaze once more. “You need to understand, Laila, just how unusual this was for a man in your father’s position. He had a country to run, but he came to your side every day.”

My mother’s voice is tense. I’m alive, so this story should
have a happy ending, but she doesn’t sound as if she’s telling a happy story.

“
I
was not by your side, though. I refused to even name you.” Her eyes fill with tears and her jaw quakes—a sight so rare that I forget to be angry with her. I move closer to her on the couch.

“I couldn’t bear it,” she continues quickly. “They said you would die, so I couldn’t bear to name you, to sit with you. I thought it would just make it worse, make it that much harder when you finally died, if I acknowledged you. In my mind, you were already lost, and the tiny person lying in that incubator was just a ghost there to torment me.”

I’m paralyzed on the sofa, too shocked by this confession to react.

Mother takes a deep breath and continues. “Your father
did
name you. He called you Samira. Oh, how we fought over that. I rarely challenged your father about anything, Laila—you know that. But I fought him day and night on that name. For me, it was a betrayal. He was prolonging my suffering. He was naming my grief.”

By now, tears are running down her face. I reach over to take her hand, but she shakes her head violently. “Let me finish,” she says. “You need to know this about your father. You need to know that for two long months I refused you a name. I refused you a life. But not him. He had faith that you would live—a faith I did not share. He named you, he sang to you, and he watched over you. And when finally,
finally
it began to look as if you would actually survive, I insisted on changing your name.”

She wipes roughly at her eyes and pulls her shoulders back. Her voice turns defensive. “I named you Laila. I convinced your father that it was a chance to start over. Samira was the name that death knew you by, I told him. But really, it was because Samira was his daughter. Not mine. Your father acknowledged you when I could not, and so I lost the right to call you by that name.”

Just when I think that she’s finished, as I’m struggling to find the words to respond, she says one more thing.

“Remember this, Laila. No matter what you hear about your father, no matter what happens, remember that he was the one who had faith in you and love for you when no one else did. Not even me.” Her voice drops so low that she almost whispers this.

I crawl over the cushion separating us on the couch and burrow into her arms like a young child, allowing her to hug me and cry softly into my hair. I still haven’t said a word to her.

When she finally pulls back and lifts her face, my mother looks older than she did just hours earlier. Her beautiful skin seems etched by lines I’ve never noticed. Her confession has aged her—she gained no relief from telling me her secret. But even as I forgive her for abandoning me so long ago, I wonder why she decided to tell me now.

I think I know. I feel mean-spirited and wicked for my thoughts, but I can’t help it. I can’t help but think that the only reason she would shield my father with such a damning confession is because my father desperately needs defending. Which means that he is guilty of what I read about, and perhaps even more.

I hug my mother one more time and then slip wordlessly into my bedroom. It doesn’t matter that I still haven’t spoken to her. One more day of silence—of neither unwanted questions nor unwanted answers—is probably a blessing for us both.

There’s a boy staring at me.

We’re in the courtyard, waiting for the lunch period to end. Everyone devours their food so quickly here, sometimes not even bothering to sit down. They text and study and walk and drive while they eat food that’s been processed, portioned, and plastic-wrapped. It’s a sterile, cheerless efficiency that makes me yearn for the leisurely meals from my past, each course lasting longer than an entire dinnertime here. Endless cups of hot, sweetened tea are a fading memory, replaced here by fizzy liquids gulped from Styrofoam containers the size of sand pails. I have to force myself to hurry or else find myself self-consciously eating long after everyone else has finished.

I nudge Emmy. “Why is he staring at me?” I’ve been relying on her more and more. It seems that the deeper I sink into my new life, the more questions I have. For weeks now, she has been my patient guide.

“Oh my god, I can’t believe I forgot to tell you!” Her hands fly up to her face. “That’s Ian. He’s been asking about you. He claims it’s for an article he’s writing for the school newspaper, but he’s so obviously lying.” She leans forward as if she’s telling a secret, although no one but me is listening. “He’s kind of geeky, but in a good way. He’s like a cute hipster dork. Not my type, but a lot of girls think he’s hot.”